


but they're one and the same

by quantumoddity



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Dark Past, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Married Couple, Nureyev's past, Other, Peter Nureyev Needs a Hug, Poverty, Sad Peter Nureyev
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25319356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Nureyev is a man of contradictions, Juno realises when he sees how he interacts with children in a situation all too familiar
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 119





	but they're one and the same

When Nureyev had told Juno how amazing it was to see new planets practically every week, to never stay in the same place, to experience the uniqueness of every corner of the galaxy, he hadn’t believed it, not really. It had felt like something a character in a stream or a novel would say, and you could trust that they believed it but it would never be true for you, not in the world you lived in. 

Juno thought he knew all planets were the same, at their core. If people never changed, how could the surfaces they walked on? He’d assumed the solar system was just eight and change repetitions of the same rotten system he’d seen on Mars, people either hurting others or getting hurt themselves. Heartbroken cities with paint over the cracks, a nice neat circle around the people who had money and the people that didn’t you could read in the amount of parks and unbroken windows. 

And he’d been right, to a certain extent. But he’d realised, as a bona fide member of the Carte Blanche, that both could be true. A crowd of impossible things that didn’t seem to go together could all actually be true, he’d found. 

Nureyev would always say that his favourite planet was whichever one they were currently on. So right now it would be Saturn, second largest in the system, with it’s beautiful pale blue sky with its layers and layers of billowing, translucent clouds, streaked with those ever present rings, like giant parenthesis around the whole thing. Only a fraction of the planet was habitable, most of it being clouds that solidified and thickened as you moved further in, making glancing up feel like being at the bottom of an immense, white well.

The markets of Saturn’s surface were famous, Nureyev told him, because where other planets had modernised from the early settlers and shifted to brick and stone and metal storefronts, Saturn had kept it’s stalls of wood and flowing silk in a hundred different colours. It was for the aesthetics, apparently, to mirror the bazaars and souks you could have found on Earth centuries ago, to remind them that they hadn’t come all that far from home. 

But this wouldn’t look much like the history books, Juno thought. The bones of it were there in the fluttering, colourful hangings and the wares laid out on woven blankets. But he doubted that twentieth century Earth had shifting holograms projected in the air to entice customers, stalls selling spaceship parts and AI downloads and cybernetics or food stalls with fruit from half a galaxy away. And he doubted the stray cats looked at you with quite so many eyes. 

But it was beautiful and it was alive. About ten songs from ten different buskers swirled together in the air, meeting in a strangely non-cacophonous melody. Juno could smell spice and honey and herbs he couldn’t even name, he heard voices in dialects he didn’t know and fashions he could barely wrap his head around. It was all just noise and colour and bodies, bright and beautiful in ways he hadn’t encountered yet, things he’d spent so much of his life being unable to see. 

It helped when his hand was in Peter Nureyev’s. They had a day off while their latest haul was sold, what Buddy jokingly called their shore leave, and all week Nureyev had eagerly been talking about this one particular stall that made the best honey cakes in the galaxy. Juno had been surprised his refined, wine connoisseur husband even entertained the idea of street food but he apparently had a must visit on every planet and wanted to watch Juno’s face while he tried each one for the first time. 

Juno was more than happy to go along with whatever he wanted. His smile hadn’t slipped once from his face since he’d woken up that morning, he was comfortable and content and being eagerly pulled through this colourful new world by the man he loved. He would have ran to any one of Saturn’s eighty two moons if Nureyev had asked him of it. 

They finally found the stall he was after, a tiny one that was little more than a blanket and a small awning covered in red silk, hemmed in by much bigger and flashier ones. It was manned by an elderly person who Nureyev tipped double for two paper cartons of small, circular cakes dipped in translucent gold. 

“Okay, okay,” Nureyev grinned, spearing one on a tiny wooden fork once they’d collapsed onto a bench, “Close your eye.” 

Juno chuckled, “Babe, come on, I’m starving! I didn’t have any breakfast cos you said we were going to eat our weight in these things.”

“Please?” he put on a playful pout and batted his eyelashes, stretching out the word, “Just for the first one. It’s worth it, I promise.” 

Never having had any intention of saying no, Juno closed his eye and dropped his jaw for Nureyev to feed him the cake, imagining how it would taste better on his lips when he kissed him. 

It was five seconds before he realised he’d been waiting a little too long. 

“Uh...babe?” he prompted to no response but the background noise of the market. 

Finally he opened his eye, seeing he was suddenly alone on the bench. For a split second that felt like an eternity, Juno scanned the crowds around them in a panic. Their last job seemed to have gone smoothly but what if it hadn’t, what it they’d left something or someone had caught wind of it and Dark Matters or a rival group had taken Nureyev in that moment his eye had been off him. 

Fortunately, he saw him before too long. He wasn’t struggling in the grip of some sunglasses wearing suit and he didn’t have a hack job modded laser knife being held to his throat. He was just crouching at the mouth of an opening between the stalls, what they would call an alley if the buildings here were made of brick, facing something in the shade, something hiding from even the weak sun of this outer planet. 

Juno frowned, approaching slowly just in case there was some kind of threat. Not that he didn’t think Nureyev could get himself out of any trouble that found him but there was value in some back up. And it wouldn’t have been the first time one of their dates had turned into a firefight. 

But all he saw when he came up behind Nureyev, walking so his boots didn’t disturb the gravel under them, was a young girl. She clung to the shadows of the waving silk above them but that didn’t hide how her hair was long and uncombed, her cheeks were smudged with dirt and eyes wide with want and hunger. There were no shoes on her feet, just knotted strips of fraying cloth, and all she wore was a dress that didn’t fit, getting ragged at the edge. 

Juno inhaled softly, feeling his chest tighten. 

Nureyev was already talking as he approached, mid sentence, his voice low and comforting, “...would you mind telling me your name? Mine is Peter.”

The girl didn’t know what to make of him, it was clear. She wouldn’t be used to people actually acknowledging her, not just letting their eyes slide off her form like she didn’t really exist. 

“May,” she eventually murmured, her eyes not settling on Nureyev’s face.

“That is a lovely name,” he said gently, “It makes me think of springtime. That’s my favorite season. What’s your favourite season?”

May shifted from one foot to the other. She was so small though whether it was from her age or her malnutrition or just the way she was holding herself so she could hide better. 

“I like...when the fireflies come out,” she whispered, directing it at the ground between them, “Summer.”

“That must be beautiful,” Nureyev spoke like this was any normal conversation, rather than one happening in a hidden corner at a volume barely above a murmur, “You seem like a very nice girl, May. I’m very glad I met you today.”

Wariness fringed her gaze as she risked a glance up at his face, her hands knotting in anxious fists at her side. But she didn’t look like she would bolt at any moment. 

“Do you know that stall over there, May?” Nureyev pointed back the way they’d come, “The cake stall? A person called Olla runs it?”

May nodded immediately and Juno realised what his husband had just done. He’d made sure the girl would know the cakes had come from a trusted source, that they were safe. 

“Here, I ordered some but I don’t think I’m hungry right now,” Nureyev held out his still full parcel, still warm and steaming in the air, “Would you like them?”

The girl had clearly been living on the streets for a long time, she hesitated before she reached out and took the cakes. Almost immediately she began to eat, unable to focus on anything else. Nureyev just waited patiently, not even having to look as he took Juno’s carton too when he held it out to him. 

The second portion allowed May to slow before she gave herself a stomach ache, honey on her fingers as she glanced back up at them and murmured, “Thank you…”

“It’s our pleasure, May,” Nureyev insisted, “This is my husband, Juno, by the way.”

Juno raised his hand and waved, smiling gently. How many smiles had he gotten when he was that age? 

Nureyev pulled out his purse, “May, you don’t have to take this if you don’t feel comfortable, but I’d like to give you something to help you get by. Is that okay?”

May’s eyes widened when she saw the creds he held out to her, the full purse without hesitation. 

“It’s okay,” Nureyev smiled crookedly, “I know this must seem strange. But I was a lot like you when I was your age and I’d like to help however I can.” 

May considered that, clearly still unsure if she was dreaming or not, but she took the purse all the same. Better to take it and consider afterwards. 

“Thank you. Inside there is a card with my number on it. If you ever need anything, May, or you feel like you’re in trouble, please consider calling me. I know people on this planet, good people, who’d be pleased to help you. I’m just sorry I can’t stay and talk for much longer.” 

May held the purse to her chest and nodded slowly, managing to meet his eyes. 

“It will get better, May,” Nureyev promised, his voice strong and sure, “I promise it will.” 

With that, he stood, still moving slowly so he didn’t startle her. He bowed slightly, thanked her sincerely for her time and walked away casually like he’d just met an old acquaintance in passing. Juno flashed May another smile and followed, finding he had to jog to catch up. Nureyev was walking faster than he’d realised.

He couldn’t help a glance back over his shoulder into the shadows but May was gone, just two cartons with honey still clinging to the inside left on the gravel. 

When he was side by side with Nureyev again, he wasn’t surprised to see tears behind his husband’s cat eye glasses. Wordlessly, Juno reached out and squeezed his hand, giving him as much time as he needed. As it happened, he needed as long as it took them to cross half the markets. 

“I just…” he said suddenly, the words bursting out of him, “I just remember when I needed to hear that. When all I needed was for someone to  _ see  _ me. So every child I meet who's clearly struggling, I just take the time to talk to them. And when I have the ability to help, I do.” 

Juno nodded, lacing their fingers together even tighter, “I wish there were more people like you. People who cared.”

Nureyev gave a sigh with a slight tremble to it, stroking the tears from his eyes with his thumb, “But there’s still millions more…”

“And you’re just you,” Juno murmured, “You can only do what you can do. Don’t take the weight of it all on yourself, not when you’ve just done everything you could do.” 

Nureyev glanced at him, the corner of his mouth quirking up, “So the next time I say that to you, will you believe me?”

“Probably not,” Juno admitted with a rough chuckle. 

Nureyev came close, leaning into him as they walked into the night, already gathering with Saturn’s shorter day. 

Reality could hold several contradictions at once, Juno had learned. Things that made each other impossible, things that were impossible inherently, it welcomed them all. People never changed but each one was unique. Planets were the same. People could be thieves and family. Someone could be gone while also being in every move you made, every word you spoke as yourself. 

The universe could be cold and cruel and brutal, chewing most people up into bits and spitting them out. It could be beautiful, full of music and laughter. 

And it could have someone in it like Peter Nureyev. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment! I'm also on Tumblr @mollymauk-teafleak


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